My name is Maggie Jennings and I’m a learning specialist at KIPP Lanning Square Primary. The best part of being a learning specialist is being on two teams—the 2nd grade team and Sprout, which supports students with special needs or who need additional support. The other best part of my job? Working with ALL these amazing people everyday!

My day starts off as I work with students on math. In my morning math group, students have been working on adding and subtracting within 1000! It’s so amazing to watch their progress throughout the year. At KIPP NJ, we are big on real-world problem solving in math. We want math to feel relevant to our students and encourage them to build on what they already know to solve new challenges--instead of students following the lead of the teacher.

One thing I love about working at KLSP is getting to solve problems alongside supportive colleagues. Today, the Sprout team and I are reviewing student work and brainstorming ways we can encourage students to do more of the heavy lifting —we want them to do more talking and explanation during lessons!

Having a network of educators who care about developing as professionals and honing their craft is important to me — our kids deserve the best teaching we can offer them—which is why we dedicate so much time during the week to reviewing data and observing each other in the classroom.

One of the best parts of my day is READING with some of my favorite people! Today, we’re reading a book called The Sea and working on self-monitoring and independent reading skills. Last year, our network made loving reading an even bigger focus than usual. "Our Kids Love to Read and We Do Too," became our motto.

Inspiring teacher moment: During a math lesson, students from years past come show us their work and then jumped in to teach part of the lesson and monitor student work! It’s amazing to see how far they’ve come—and how much their confidence has grown. We encourage collaboration between students in our classrooms.

Finally, we wrap up our day from our new athletic field at dismissal!

Interested in learning how you can join our team of educators? Head here to check out job listings — we are currently hiring special education teachers!